hem is the traitor Judas, with a face wholly
different from those of the others, and in a strange attitude; and the
others are all gazing intently at Jesus, who is speaking to them, being
near His Passion. On the right hand of this work is a S. Francis of the
size of life, a very beautiful figure, the countenance of which is the
very presentment of that sanctity which was peculiar to that most
saintly man; and he is presenting to Christ the Marquis Francesco, who
is kneeling at his feet, portrayed from life in a long coat pleated and
worked with a curly pattern, according to the fashion of those times,
and embroidered with white crosses, perchance because he may have been
at that time Captain of the Venetians. And in front of the Marquis is a
portrait, with the hands clasped, of his eldest son, who was then a very
beautiful boy, and afterwards became Duke Federigo. On the other side is
painted a S. Bernardino, equal in excellence to the figure of S.
Francis, and likewise presenting to Christ the brother of the Marquis,
Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga, a very beautiful kneeling figure, robed in
the habit of a Cardinal, with the rochet, which is also a portrait from
life; and in front of that Cardinal is a portrait of Signora Leonora,
the daughter of the same Marquis, who was then a girl, and afterwards
became Duchess of Urbino. This whole work is held by the most excellent
painters to be a marvellous thing.

[Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN

(_After the painting by =Francesco Monsignori [Bonsignori]=. Berlin:
Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 46 c_)

_Hanfstaengl_]

The same master painted a picture of S. Sebastian, which was afterwards
placed in the Madonna delle Grazie, without the city of Mantua; and to
this he devoted extraordinary pains, copying many things in it from the
life. It is related that the Marquis, going one day, while Francesco was
executing this picture, to see him at work, as he used often to do, said
to him: "Francesco, you must take some fine figure as your model in
painting this Saint." To which Francesco answered: "I am using as my
model a porter with a very handsome figure, whom I bind in a fashion of
my own in order to make the work natural." "But the limbs of this Saint
of yours," rejoined the Marquis, "are not true to life, for they have
not the appearance of being strained by force or by that fear which one
would expect in a man bound and shot with arrows; and by your leave I
will undertake to show you what